


By Hand

by ninemoons42



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Cooking, Food, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reading Aloud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-24
Updated: 2011-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-16 22:36:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of many reunions takes a turn for the sensual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Hand

  
title: By Hand  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ninemoons42**](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)  
pairing: Arthur/Eames  
warnings: So, while she was beta-ing the third part of my Mal/Ariadne AU, [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/photoclerk/profile)[**photoclerk**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/photoclerk/) challenged me to go and write something sexy. The prompt she gave me was "finger sucking". And that just pretty much says it all, doesn't it? So I've put an H/C twist on the idea here.  
And there's food pr0nz here, too; the pie is straight out of Nigella Lawson, while the plums came from a suggestion by [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/chn_breathmint/profile)[**chn_breathmint**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/chn_breathmint/).  
disclaimer: I don't own the original story or the characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.  
summary: One of many reunions takes a turn for the sensual.

  
Arthur dried his hands on a tea towel and pulled the refrigerator door open, digging for supplies: butter. Ice cubes. Pancetta. The eggs and the onion and the green peppers were in various baskets, scattered around the little kitchen.

As George Guidall’s voice filled the room with the famous opening line of Stephen King’s _The Dark Tower_ , Arthur selected a knife and got to work. He chopped the onions and the peppers, made shortcrust pastry, fried the pancetta. He beat the eggs lightly, added a vicious grating of black pepper.

There was one more package and it sat by itself on one of the kitchen counters. Every now and then Arthur would look up from his hands, look at the package, and permit himself a small smile.

A sweet fragrance slowly filled the room, a beautiful and insidious counterpoint to the trials of the gunslinger, Roland of Gilead.

Sunday afternoon in New York. Arthur was flying out in two days’ time. He was expecting Eames sometime in the next few hours.

When he was finished and the egg-and-bacon pie was in the oven, Arthur took a bottle of the merlot Eames favored out of storage, then turned off the audiobook. He walked slowly through the apartment, picked up his glasses and his battered hardcover of _The Gunslinger_ from the bedside table, and returned to the kitchen, picking up the book where the reader had left off.

Pausing only to take the finished pie out of the oven and let it cool, Arthur lost himself in the book. It was a familiar story, a cyclical one.

That was when he heard the scrape of a key in the lock, and he set the book aside with a smile, and walked through the apartment to meet Eames.

Eames was tanned – nearly sunburnt around his nose – and slightly disheveled. A bandage wrapped around his right wrist, long-faded bloodstains on the tails of his shirt. Otherwise, he looked all right, and Arthur quickly relieved him of his bags before pulling him into a hug.

“Well, hello to you too,” Eames said, and it sounded like his usual bravado – but Arthur had already known him long enough to detect the note of relief in his voice. “Sorry to make you wait, Arthur.”

“I don’t mind, Eames, you know that. Do you want me to check that bandage for you?”

“Yes, please.”

“Well, come on, we can do this in the kitchen.”

“Please tell me there’s food.”

Arthur looked over his shoulder, shot him a smile. “I made that pie you like so much.”

“As always, Arthur, you are brilliant,” Eames said, and this time there was no mistaking the gratefulness in his tone.

Arthur hauled their oversized first-aid kit out from under the bathroom sink, motioned to Eames to sit down at the kitchen table, opened the merlot to pour him a glass of wine. “Any other injuries I need to know about?”

“This is the only one. Ariadne shot everyone else off my back before they could do any more damage.”

“Good for her,” Arthur murmured absently, as he unwound the old bandage and peered critically at Eames’s forearm. “What got you here?”

“Knife,” Eames sighed.

Arthur dabbed on some antiseptic and wound a fresh bandage around Eames’s wrist, then nodded and released him. “The pie’s over there on the counter; help yourself.”

After, Arthur walked around the table to sit next to Eames, snagging the package and smiling as Eames sniffed the air appreciatively. “Now what is that, Arthur, some kind of treat?”

“What makes you think it’s a treat?” And with a quick, bright slash of his penknife Arthur opened the paper bag to reveal half a dozen dark-yellow fruit, flecked here and there with tiny dark spots.

“Mirabelle plums,” Eames said, and held one fruit to his nose, sniffing deeply. “And perfectly ripe – do I want to know how you got these?”

“Probably not,” Arthur chuckled, and he took a plum for himself, carefully wiped the wax off on another tea towel, and then bit into it. Juices dribbling from the corners of his mouth.

Eames was faring no better.

And Arthur stared, quietly transfixed, when Eames started sucking his fingers, one after the other. Those cheeks hollowing out, the eyes screwed up in ecstasy.

And yeah, Eames had been away for three long weeks.

So he waited for Eames to finish and then Arthur crushed what was left of his plum in his fist, offered his sticky, yellow-flesh-covered hand to Eames.

Eames’s eyes lit up with a feral gleam and he seized Arthur’s wrist in his hands, brought it up to his mouth, and started cleaning it, slowly, with his lips and his teeth and his tongue.

Arthur shuddered at the first touch to his fingers and he forced himself to watch, to keep his eyes open, as Eames took him in, finger by finger, teeth scraping gently over his knuckles, tongue working eagerly around his fingertips.

“Do you want another one,” Arthur said, and he wasn’t even surprised by how his voice had dropped.

“Give me your other hand,” was all Eames whispered.

Trembling, Arthur gave it.  



End file.
